“Dark Devotion” Preview: Gloomy Rogue-like RPG

Currently in development by Hibernian Workshop (an indie european studio), Dark Devotion is a gloomy rogue-like RPG that will be released on PC. The game is currently on Kickstarter which includes a Windows demo, to help fund the project with €7,142 raised of its €20,000goal, and with 27 days left on the clock. The game very much has a Salt and Sanctuary vibe to, both visually and in the form of gameplay. Let’s dig into this 2D side-scrolling RPG and see what it’s all about.

Dark Devotion, A Dreary Journey to Salvation

How inviting..

In Dark Devotion, players will find themselves trapped in a dark and gloomy temple, and will need to find their inner strength and courage to face its dangers. Dark Devotion invites you into a rich, if not peculiar universe where players will progress through a series of increasingly difficult challenges If you happen to survive the first, congrats, but don’t even think for a second that the next path will be as effortless as the first. Take part into intense and bloody combat in which your opponents won’t show you any mercy. Be prepared to face foes that you won’t forget, and remember, not only enemies, but the Temple itself will attempt to strike you down. Each and every fight is a duel to the death in which the slightest error may cost you your life.

Features

A strong RPG influence: You will have the chance to loot a lot of different weapons, armours and relics, which have their own qualities so that you have the chance to create your own build… for better and for worse…

Pray for your safety: Kill enemies to collect some Faith. Indeed, Faith is necessary to many things such as : unlocking secret paths, special chests, and more… So use it sparingly.

Items for your salvation: Of course you will be able to heal your wounds or illnesses by consuming the right item. If you have the chance to loot the right one! A lot of other consumables are scattered in the Temple, spend them carefully to survive.

You can’t go back, every door automatically closes behind you: Each world has 3 or 4 different paths. Each path has its own environment and atmosphere. Some of them are inter-connected. As you can guess, every game will bring you through differents paths.

Discover the complex story behind this Temple: Meet the lost ones who populate it, either directly or thanks to letters left behind by lost travelers. Some will even arrive at the shelter.

Story & Setting

A Story or a Myth

GIF: There is no turning back now…

As far as we can remember, the Temple has always been our only goal : it is a place of darkness and despair from which no one ever came back, but our God commands us to overcome this shrine to prove our devotion. Everywhere Inquisition is reigning and everyone against it is brought to the temple.

Children are taken away from their parents and educated to become templars. Then they become warriors, trained to kill and lead their crusade to victory and devotion is their salvation. Templars usually go fighting as squads. Except for one girl. Facing dangers and atrocities, she can only rely on her own faith to stay alive through her journey. You are now that woman, that hero.

Image: Adonias, Dark Devotion

Rumors have it that this Temple once was only within reach of a small selection of people : located on the ruins of some ancient civilization that existed long before human era, originally luxurious and thriving, it has been seen for a long time as a place of worship filled with mystery.

The story goes that the shrine’s aura would allow his inhabitants to withstand the passage of time. As Babylon reached out towards the heavens, the Temple digs down to the core of the earth. Only noblemen and chosen ones may occupy the deepest floors.

GIF: Faith is the only thing you can rely on.

Rare were the souls who succeeded in slipping out of the bowels of the Temple… Their appearance was as appalling and horrific as their words. The Inquisition took good care in extracting the more information they could out of these inconsistent pieces of creature.

Gameplay

GIF: Gameplay

Dark Devotion is strongly influenced by Role Playing Games of the past, but adds its own unique elements. Combat shares some characteristics from Dark Souls and Salt and Sanctuary, it is weighty and deliberate, and the actions you perform such as rolling or attacking consume stamina that recharges with rest. Boss fights within Dark Devotion are pattern-based, with their attacks being telegraphed allowing for players to dodge through with proper timing.

There will be a lot of varied weapons, armors, and relics that you will be able to experiment with and combine to suit your playstyle. Each weapon is unique on its own and is customizable by infusing ‘Mystical Runes’.

When you slay your enemies they drop “Faith“, that is used to unlock Secret Paths, Special Chests, and can be used in the Filthblood Shelter (the HUB) to upgrade your unlucky character and much more.

GIF: Flame Sword!

Secrets propagate the Temple and it is described as “containing many worlds”, each with three or four different paths that each have their own domain and theme. Some of these domains are inter-connected and with each playthrough of the game, you will come upon a different path. There is no backtracking as the doors behind you in the temple shut tight, forever.

GIF: The Shelter’s Library.

The Temple keeps its secrets tightly wound… When you discover text or a secret room will require an observant player with perseverance. The discovery of these text and hidden areas are worth the trouble as they contain powerful items and give clues to the world you’re trapped in.

You can watch the Kickstarter trailer to Dark Devotion below:

Dark Devotion has been in development for over two years with promising progress and you can back the game on its Kickstarter page here.

It’s a little like Salt & Sanctuary, a little like Shrouded in Sanity, and a lot like a Rouge-like. As to be expected of anything trying to fit into the soulsborne genre, it’s fairly hard. Combat is solid so far, level design is good, sound and graphics are appealing and fitting, and the story has piqued my interest. I really like the equipment and faith systems. Not being able to go back is an interesting challenge, and the world design is novel and should give lots of replayablity. This is what I mean by world design. You can only complete one path per tier before you have to move on to the next. You can explore all of them, but once you beat one there is no going back… The only problems where some bugs. Moving left always had me roll before I could walk normally (which screwed me over A LOT), and the game crashed on me once so far. The controler support needs to be fixed and the in-game menu needs work. That said, this is still a very early demo, and we can reasonably suspect these to be fixed in the future.

Looks interesting, have to try the demo they have. Thing I found funny though is the boss or enemy you see at the 1:32 video mark I’ve seen before, as a gif several months back and not as good looking but yeah kind of neat to have seen probably something early on. I might have the gif saved on my phone still. If so I’ll put it up here to show.

EDIT:

Scratch that, just went back to look at the kickstarter and see that the gif is in it. I saw Hezek, the Baptized a few months back, same gif. Cool to see that the boss idea is going to be real.